Worth
by ScarletRaven1001
Summary: Bulma is drowning in self-doubt following her break-up with Yamcha, but comfort comes from the strangest of places as her seemingly insensitive Saiyan house guest reminds her that she is worth much more than she believed herself to be. A three-year gap fic. One shot.


**Worth**

This is my first fan work for the DB/DBZ/DBS fandom, in spite of being a fan of the series and an avid Vegebul shipper for literally decades. Why did I decide to do this now? Nearly all in-universe fics I have read so far have painted Bulma as a sexually-experienced woman. I wanted to explore the possibility of her being the innocent one in her relationship with Vegeta. I thought that perhaps this TPTH prompt would be the perfect chance to explore that idea.

EDIT Oct 28 2017: I have edited this version to comply with this website's rules regarding their M rating. This is thus the CENSORED version. For the full, uncensored version, please find me on Archiveofourown, under the same author name.

-/-

She looked absolutely miserable.

Granted, Vegeta would never consider himself particularly perceptive regarding emotions, never mind _human_ emotions. One glance at the woman though, and even one as emotionally-stunted as himself could see that the woman was unwell.

He had been too busy training for the androids to notice anything that went on outside of the gravity chamber. All he knew was that after the explosion that damn near destroyed him along with the ship, the woman had been even more… _friendly_ towards him. Perhaps she felt a peculiar kinship with him after having watched over his bed-ridden form for several days. Or maybe she believed that he had gained a modicum of humanity from his humbling experience and wanted to help him ease into their world.

Or maybe, she had always been like that, and he had just never realized it until then.

He had always treated her as just another pawn thrown into his life to help him attain a goal. A tool, if you may, to aide him with his mission to attain the legendary. A tool wrapped in a sinfully beautiful face and a body that could make lesser men weep, but a tool, nonetheless.

Regardless of his opinions of her though, even he could not deny that things had changed. He was more tolerant of her, more open to spending time with her, for reasons not even he himself could fathom. Somehow, whether he liked it or not, the little witch had grown on him.

The woman had the audacity to sit with him during his post-workout meals. She fuzzed over his minor injuries as if they were life-threatening, despite all the data she had regarding Saiyan physiology that showed that nothing short of a hole through his entire torso would have any lasting damage on him. Some of the said data came from samples he had allowed the silly woman to take from his own body, just to placate her into allowing him to train in peace.

He recognized her intellectual capacity as being far superior to those of the other beings living around her. She had inventions so advanced that they had to be kept in top secret facilities as the concepts were so far beyond their time that they had to wait for specialized parts to be invented or custom-made.

She was fiery, with a quick wit and temper matched only by his own. She would allow him to vent but would only take so much abuse until she decided to fire back at him. Their arguments were always epic, a volley of insult after insult, but he derived a perverted sense of satisfaction in watching her cheeks turn red with her indignation, her chest rising and falling aggressively with her deep, angry breaths.

It did not take a huge leap for him to imagine her in other situations that would make her flush and pant so powerfully.

But she had a mate, the weakling that often stayed with her, and Vegeta accepted that he had no business fantasizing about her.

That right there was another problem: he had been celibate for far too long, and the woman was too physically appealing. Especially when she was worked up, glaring at him fiercely, a harsh insult on the tip of her tongue.

Which was why her melancholy mood from the past few days struck him as strangely disconcerting.

He started to walk past the female's forlorn form, seated on a barstool in the kitchen. Her hair, currently a straight cut that fell past her shoulders, shielded her eyes. She had not noticed him there yet, he could still make a run for it.

'I shouldn't interfere,' he told himself. 'This is none of my business. It is absolutely not my concern if the woman drives herself mad with whatever benign issue she has in mind.'

But damn, if he didn't miss their quarrels... Her resistance to fix the bots he ruined. Her anger had become one of the highlights of his days, but she had been so out of touch recently that she had simply sighed and walked quietly to the gravity chamber the last time he demanded she repair his bots.

He refused to believe that what he felt was concern.

She heaved a dejected sigh that was so out of character for her that he had to pause and reassess.

'I will approach her,' he thought, wondering where this sudden streak of compassion had come from. Whether he would regret this lapse in judgment later…

'I _will_ approach her,' he asserted to himself as he began to walk towards her. 'I will get to the bottom of this nonsense and have the vitriolic harpy back into proper form. I will indulge her human propensity for talking about her problems, but… never again. It will be just _this_ once.'

"Woman."

The rough voice startled Bulma out of her self-imposed isolation. She was so focused on her misery, on blaming herself for how things had unfolded, that she didn't realize that her ridiculously powerful Saiyan house guest was only a few feet away and seemingly intending to sit on a stool across from her.

She watched as he sat down gracefully, then his vivid eyes settled directly on her.

She looked around and noticed that he did not set out any food for himself, which was strange. He normally only ever went to the kitchen to eat, but here he was, seated almost primly before her, not a scrap of food in sight.

'Maybe he wants me to make some for him,' she mused. After all, she had done that for him for quite a few times. God forbid he tried to use an oven on his own.

She started to get up to find him something to eat, when his voice, and the unexpected words said in that voice, nearly made her fall off the chair completely.

"What has been bothering you?"

She gawked at him, completely unprepared for the question. 'So he had noticed?' she wondered as she righted herself again, still looking at him in surprise.

"Umm… I beg your p-pardon?" she stammered.

He sneered at her before he bit out, "You have been acting like a fool for several days, and I want to know why. Your morose mood may affect your ability to enhance my training room and I want you back in form. I will ask again, and you will answer me properly this instance: What. Has. Been. Bothering you?"

Bulma didn't know if she should be offended or be touched by his question.

She mulled over it for a bit. What brought this on? Why did he want to know? Was he actually concerned about her?

She considered him her friend, after all. Perhaps he was finally beginning to accept her as his, as well.

Her thoughts had probably started to reflect themselves on her face, as he quickly barked out, "Don't look at me like that! I just demand to know why my brilliant scientist is suddenly behaving like such a dejected fool."

She bit back a smile at his words. ' _My_ scientist _?'_ she thought with a chuckle, knowing that he was probably too flustered to realize what he had said.

She tried to school her features into a blank mask as she looked back at him, mulling it over. 'He's gonna call me an idiot if I tell him. But he _did_ ask.'

Taking a deep breath, she whispered one word, "Yamcha."

A raised eyebrow was all she got from the Saiyan. "What about him?"

"We broke up."

"What exactly did you break on him and why has that made you act the way you have been acting?"

She burst out laughing, the first time in days, a kind of cathartic release from the pain that her break-up had caused her.

Vegeta snarled in confusion, and just as he was about to yell at her, she started speaking.

"Vegeta, breaking up means that he is no longer my boyfriend. We are no longer _together_ romantically," she smiled at him, some of her earlier grief evaporating as she watched him scrunch his face up in confusion.

"Is that the reason why I have not seen his pathetic hide for several days now? I was under the impression that he was your _mate,"_ Vegeta asked, genuinely confused.

"Mate?"

"A lover, a life partner. Like your father and your mother."

"Oh no, Vegeta! Not like that!" she laughed sadly. "My parents are husband and wife. Yamcha was my boyfriend. It is not the same as being a married couple, but…" Bulma looked down at her hands before continuing. "It entails a certain level of commitment. One that we no longer have, now."

"Well," he began slowly, seeming to weigh her words. "If this is what your problem is, why don't you just ask the weakling to come back?"

She sighed. "It's not that simple, Vegeta. You see, Yamcha, he… He _left_ me."

" _He_ was the one who chose to abandon you?" he sounded incredulous.

She nodded. "Yes. He cheated on me. He found someone else," she laughed bitterly before she snarled out, "Someone who fulfilled his _needs."_

A low growl from her alien house guest had her looking back up, and Bulma was startled to find an enraged look on Vegeta's face. He looked nearly insulted, indignant, and she realized that he was angry on _her behalf._

"The ungrateful weasel," he hissed. "How dare he. Have you not given him everything?"

She was surprised by the level of hatred in his voice as he kept talking, "No self-respecting man, Saiyan or not, should ever be unfaithful to his chosen woman."

Bulma stared in astonishment as apparently, her words touched on something that was a sensitive topic for the prince.

"I am staying in your home, in your debt, I recognize this fact," he started again, surprising Bulma further, "But I intend to recompense you by defeating the androids. That fool, on the other hand, has taken from you, and he repays you by betraying you with another female?!"

Bulma felt tears spring to her eyes, touched by his words. Vegeta seemed genuinely enraged at the concept of Yamcha leaving her for another woman.

"You are a highly desirable female on this planet. You have given him your food, your time, shelter. You have given him pleasure, your body, and he dares-"

Her thoughts screeched to a halt at those words, and without thinking, her face redder than a ripe tomato, Bulma sputtered out, "No!"

Vegeta stopped ranting, looking at her in confusion. "No?" he asked, pausing to let her clarify.

She blushed even deeper, before she looked him dead in the eyes, "Vegeta... I never slept with Yamcha."

"Tch," he sneered. "Don't lie to me woman. As loathe as I am to admit it, I can hear the sounds of your copulation through your bedchamber walls. He, specifically, can be disgustingly loud."

"But you don't hear _me_ , right?" she asked, the flush refusing to leave her cheeks as she forced herself to keep her gaze on Vegeta.

The look he gave her then was so absolutely mystified that she had to choke back a laugh in spite of her debilitating embarrassment.

"Vegeta, we have… Umm… _fooled around._ But I have never had _actual penetrative sex._ Not with Yamcha, not with anyone. Ever. So yes, he may have gotten some pleasure out of me, but I never…" she stammered, before covering her face with her hands and whining, "Why am I even telling you this?"

The Saiyan sat back in his chair, silently mulling over her words. He was looking at his crossed arms, and appeared to be blushing a little as well, but Bulma was far too embarrassed to even think about needling him about it.

When he finally looked back up, he had a confused look on his face again.

"Why?" he whispered, almost too low for her to hear.

"Why what?"

"You were together for over a decade. You told me this. Why then did you never fornicate?"

Her humiliation vanished, replaced by guilt and sadness once again. "I… I don't know. I honestly don't understand it either. I mean, I loved him. I guess I was just never ready yet. I wanted to be ready, but I just _couldn't."_

A sob broke out of her then, and she watched Vegeta tense in front of her, obviously uncomfortable with the direction their conversation had taken.

"I knew what he wanted. I wanted it too, at some point, but I just can't. I always froze up and stopped him before we started," a sardonic laugh escaped her as she shook her head, looking away from his piercing dark gaze. "I was always such a flirt too, you know, back when we were younger. I'll bet he never expected me to give him a decade-long case of blue balls."

A hint of bitterness entered her voice as she kept talking, "I tried to fix it. I agreed to touch him, to _get the edge off_ , as he put it. But it wasn't enough. _I_ wasn't enough."

She couldn't stop her next words, as she had been thinking them repeatedly over the past week. "I should have just let him do it… This is all my fault. I shouldn't have made him wait so long. It was just sex after all, and I could have just -"

"Woman, shut up," her eyes widened as she snapped her eyes back to Vegeta, and was surprised by the anger that had sprung back into his eyes.

"Shut up. Stop thinking this way. This is not your fault."

A gasp escaped her as what he said sunk in. She was about to refute him, but instead, he raised a hand to stop her self-pity party, his eyes still hard, but the softest she had ever seen them, and trained directly into her own.

"Listen woman, and listen well, for I will only ever say this once, and if you repeat this to anyone, I will deny having said every single word.  
The most valuable conquests are always those that you have waited for and worked hard to attain. The measure of a man can be counted only with victories that were hard-fought.  
You are a woman of _worth_. The wait and the effort he would have put into courting you should have challenged him to prove himself worthy of your surrender. If the weakling was foolish enough to indulge in inferior liaisons with other females as he grew impatient waiting for you to be ready to give yourself to him, then you were right to have never given in because he was clearly never man enough for you.  
You are not to blame for his infidelity. Never think that his indiscretion was due to your misgivings. You cannot, and _must not_ , force yourself to lay with anyone if you do not want to.  
It is your body. Your mind, your life. For such things, you must never, ever compromise."

His eyes grew even more intent on hers, "Now pull yourself back together, Bulma. He is not worth your misery. No man should be worth your tears."

Bulma was stunned into silence. Vegeta, the alien prince who had spent his life exterminating countless civilizations, had just told her that she was not to blame for her break up. The biggest alpha male she had ever met was now sitting across from her, telling her to never compromise her body, and a cloud of happiness surged into her chest at being told that she did the right thing, to have stood up to Yamcha and not slept with him until she was sure and ready. Tears began to fill her eyes again, but this time with relief that someone else believed that what she did was right. And he had _said her name._

Vegeta looked away from her dampening eyes, then slowly stood up and began to walk out of the kitchen.

"Vegeta," she called, her voice hoarse with her unshed tears. "Vegeta, thank you."

He nodded at her once, then walked away, his silent steps letting Bulma know that he was headed once again to his training room.

Her heart beat faster, hope blossoming in her chest as her eyes trailed after Vegeta long after he had left her line of sight, and in the back of her heart, a part she was yet unaware of, the name of the proud prince quietly started taking root.

Weeks passed quickly within the walls of Capsule Corp, and before she knew it, Bulma was buried in so much work that she had no time to eat, and even less time to dwell on her break up with Yamcha.

Vegeta certainly kept her busy: between all the broken bots and demands for more improvements to the gravity room, he always managed to find something for the blue-haired scientist to do. His latest demand: a set of armor to replace the last set that he owned, the one baring the holes that reminded him of his death on Namek-sei.

He was even bossier than before, but Bulma noticed that the man was also a lot more _visible_. Prior to their fateful conversation in the kitchen, she would sometimes go _days_ without seeing him, but nowadays, like clockwork, he would be in the kitchen at midnight, impatiently tapping his feet while he waited for her to prepare (mostly just reheating what her mother had made) his dinner.

He routinely engaged her in petty little arguments that ended with them screaming at each other, but she could see a peculiar glint in his eyes that she at first could not understand. All she knew was that a side of her, the _headstrong little she-devil_ as he liked to call her, enjoyed the verbal sparring, and she began to see that he did, too. After a few more days, she finally understood… He was doing it to distract her.

He was distracting her from her misery, and it was working. It was working very well. She would never acknowledge it since she just _knew_ he would deny it, but she was unendingly thankful to him for what he was doing. She felt her heart softening more and more towards him, and though she could feel a change coming, she still, stubbornly, refused to name it.

And if his ultimate goal was distraction, well… Those glimpses of his perfect physique while he went about his business without a damn shirt on was definitely an even better strategy.

Physically pure she may be, but her thoughts, turning more and more lascivious at a frightening pace, were another matter entirely.

She had always acknowledged that Vegeta was very attractive. If she was being completely honest, that attractiveness was one of the reasons why she invited him to live with her in the first place.

However, it concerned her how easily she could daydream about touching those delicious Saiyan muscles nowadays, when she had previously been regarded as a prude by her ex-boyfriend. Her ex, whom she had loved for nearly 15 years. And whom she knew had also loved her.

Vegeta, on the other hand… She would be reaching if she even claimed that he may care. Or was she?

Tossing away her improper thoughts, she huffed, blowing her bangs away from her face, to concentrate on fixing the latest casualty of Vegeta's ridiculous training regimen.

He knew what he was doing. He didn't dare dwell on the why's, but he damn well knew what he had been doing. Didn't mean he was doing it willingly, and he cursed himself poignantly for his ridiculous actions.

Bulma was now a single woman. And he had unconsciously started moving in on her now that she was unattached.

He was furious with himself. The woman should be allowed time to heal, not to have a monster like himself suddenly trying to siddle in.

It had begun as him trying to, for once in his life, make things more pleasant for another. He wanted the spitfire woman to be back to normal, and he had an idea: He knew that he, personally, always managed to stave off any _feelings_ when he had something to focus on, and he had begun piling work onto her, hoping it would have the same effect… And it did.

The woman worked with a single-minded intensity that amazed even him, barely stopping for breaks even when he could tell that her fragile human body was close to giving out.

He didn't wish to go as far as bringing her fucking food to her, so he found a way to get her to eat. He started finishing his training at a fixed time, demanding that she make him some food, then giving her some of the said food so she had some sustenance. A couple of weeks later, a routine had been established: they would both stop what they were doing at midnight, head to the kitchen, and she would cook while he waited, then they both ate in increasingly comfortable silence.

He wanted to blast his own face apart with his Galick Gun, livid at his perceived hypocrisy. The Prince of all Saiyans, trying to cozy up to a human woman, whom he knew was probably still nursing a broken heart. He felt like a fiend.

And worse of all, he did not understand why he was doing it, and being the coward that he currently thought himself to be, he adamantly refused to analyze his own motivations. At first he thought he was doing it to get into her pants, but he realized he was wrong when he started thinking less about what she would look like naked, and more of what else he could do to erase the haunted look lingering in the edges of her eyes.

"Fuck!" he screamed in irritation, hurtling a tremendous ki blast at a bot, only for it to dodge, with his blast ending up frying the gravity room's control panel. The emergency lock down that Bulma had installed after the old ship blew up engaged, and he flew up and crashed harshly into the domed ceiling as the 450g gravity stopped weighing him down.

The woman's face, smudged with what appeared to be axel grease, was immediately on the communication screen, the lockdown sequence also alerting her that something had gone wrong.

"Vegeta, what-"

"Woman, I am fine," he flew to levitate in front of her image, quickly cutting off her rising panic. "I missed a fucking bot and blew up the controls. Now you need to fix it."

"Dammit Vegeta, I told you to be more careful with the room! No amount of reinforcements can protect the sensitive control panel from you!" She rubbed her forehead in agitation.

"I can't fix it today. I used some of the special spare parts on a machine that locked up in the main engine room, and I need to wait a couple of days for the parts to be delivered. You're gonna have to find another way to occupy yourself, in the meantime."

"Woman," he growled threateningly. "That is unacceptable. Another day I waste not training is another day I do not get strong enough to destroy the androids. We only have less than two years to go and I have not ascended yet!"

"And I still can't fix that thing today! I don't have the components!" she shot back, before an idea seemingly came to her and a smile lit up her face.

Vegeta just stared at her brilliant eyes, then angrily shook himself out of whatever-the-hell-that-was when she started speaking again.

"I know! Come down into my lab and we can test out your armor!" she enthused, and he immediately perked up at the mention of his Saiyan attire. She had been working on it for weeks, saying she needed to figure out some compounds to toughen up the material while keeping it malleable enough to wear comfortably.

"Have you finished it?" he asked, barely managing to hide his own enthusiasm at seeing Bulma so animated.

"I think so. I have been testing out my prototype and it has managed to stand up to the strength tests. Your ki blasts are stronger than any artificial energy I could produce though, so I would like to see if it could withstand your ki. It is also soft enough to wear now, unlike my first failed attempt," she laughed, and Vegeta smirked as he too recalled the unfortunate first suit that could indeed stand up to ki blasts, but was also so tough that he could not put it on.

"You will fix this infernal machine once the parts arrive?" he asked again, just to clarify.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, I will fix my beautiful creation that you destroy again and again, once the parts arrive."

Nodding once, he shut off the communication link before exiting the gravity room, heading for the woman's personal laboratory.

Bulma was practically vibrating in excitement as Vegeta entered her lab. He was sweaty and a bit haggard, but like his gravity-defying hair, he stood proud and straight, looking around her lab expectantly.

Bulma inwardly groaned as she realized that her mind was currently squealing about how handsome he was, standing there in his tiny lycra shorts and those droplets of sweat clinging to his amazing body, honed and toned by years of hard work.

"It's in here!" she called out, pointing to a box on the table beside her.

He approached her silently, peering into the box that she had opened, pulling out the blue battle suit and the white breastplate. She handed him the breastplate first, and she watched as he pulled it onto his torso, testing the elasticity.

She noted how the armor hugged him perfectly, nodding in satisfaction as it became apparent that the breastplate was now wearable.

Next, they had to test the strength. Vegeta took the armor off and held it in his left hand, then pulled back his right hand and gave it a solid punch. His punch was strong enough to start tremors within her lab, and she grinned proudly when the armor didn't even budge.

Vegeta looked up and caught her eye, an impressed smirk on his lips. He then opened up his fist, clearly intending to try a ki blast, before he stopped and regarded her again.

"Woman, you may want to stand back," he said softly, and Bulma nodded, going behind him to shield herself with his strong body.

He released a small ki blast, and Bulma shrieked in excitement when the armor simply absorbed the energy. Vegeta then used more energy on another blast, and another, slowly increasing intensity until he stopped, turned to face her, and to Bulma's eternal shock, he grinned, a genuinely happy light entering his obsidian eyes.

"Great work, woman," he remarked, and Bulma was so ridiculously happy about her success that without thinking, she laughed giddily and grabbed Vegeta around his neck in a big hug.

She felt him stiffen, dropping the armor in his hands to the floor. Realizing what she had done, she moved to release him…

Or at least, she tried to, but his arms, far stronger than her own, suddenly wound around her waist. She looked down at his arms in surprise, not quite believing the sensation of his embrace until she saw it with her own eyes.

A choked sound escaped his throat, and she looked up at his face, her own flushing at the intensity of his gaze.

He was staring at her, piercing her soul with this eyes, and before Bulma knew what was happening, she felt his lips against her own, and her heart burst in elation as his lips moved firmly, demandingly, coaxing a strangled moan from her as she heatedly kissed him back.

His hands roamed her back, caressing her arms, clutching at her sides, as his kiss dominated her, her mouth desperately keeping up with his urgent but gentle movements. She heard him groan against her lips when she moved one hand to clutch at the hair on the back of his neck, the other moving down to greedily grasp the hard planes of his chest.

He wrenched his lips away from her mouth, only to turn his attentions to her throat. She moaned deeply as her hands moved to grasp his forearms, finally feeling the ridges that she had previously memorized with her eyes.

Her sounds seemed to spur him on, as he suddenly grabbed her by the waist with his two large hands, lifting her onto her desk as she impulsively wrapped her legs around his hips. He kept kissing her, becoming more forceful, even as her nails began to rake almost painfully across his muscled back.

A near animalistic growl reached her ears and she found her blouse pulled roughly down her shoulders, trapping her upper arms against her as he continued to ravage her neck, quickly going lower, and she felt his rough tongue lapping nearly at the tops of her breasts. She cried out in delight, clutching his head with her hands, egging him on.

However, as suddenly as he started, Vegeta suddenly reared back, panic in his eyes as he held her back at arm's length.

"B-Bulma…" he stammered, eyes wide, and she tried to reach for him, to pull him back to her, but he was suddenly gone, the only sign that he was ever there was the breeze left behind by his speed, in his haste to leave.

Numb with shock as what just transpired finally registered in her brain, Bulma slowly adjusted her top, noting that the seams had been torn by his forceful pulling. She stared down at the armor on the floor, reeling from the chaotic thoughts crowding her mind.

But the foremost thought screaming at her from inside her head, was asking just one thing…

'What the hell just happened?'

It has been three days since Vegeta fled Capsule Corp, seeking the calming refuge of a quiet wilderness. He had proceeded to systematically decimate the said wilderness, and when no structure or living thing remained standing, he had morosely sat down in the center of the wide span of land, his mind in chaos, his hands itching to either do more damage or cling to the woman that he had run away from.

"Fucking idiot," he muttered to himself, lifting his hand and sending a ki blast onto something that moved in his peripheral vision. He was a mess, he knew, but he had no idea what to do to fix this debacle that he just foolishly thrust himself into.

What had he been thinking?! He was a horrible person and should not dare to touch a woman whose hands were unsoiled by death

But she was so soft, and she smelled so good, and he had been thinking about her so much in the last few days that when she touched him, he lost his damn mind and let himself ravage her.

He thought many times about just leaving Earth altogether, so he could gather his wits about him, but something held him back. H still couldn't identify it, this damned _feeling_ in the back of his head, that made him impulsively touch her.

She was broken, lonely, and most likely still hurting. And he, a career assassin who never felt anything more than irritation over killing off entire races of beings, felt like an absolute ass about taking advantage of her this way.

But then he realized, he was lonely, too. He always had been. And in Bulma's loneliness, he started seeing her as a kindred spirit who could complement his own solitude.

He needed to go back.

He blanched at the idea of going back to Capsule Corp, but he steeled himself, mentally protesting that he was _no fucking coward_ and he can go and face the heiress whenever he pleased.

It was past midnight, but Bulma lay awake, unable to sleep. He was back. She knew he was back, the moment he stepped into her home. She didn't know how, she had no ki control or detection skills to speak of, but she just _knew._ She felt it when he went in to take his shower. Knew his routine, that he always washed himself right after coming back from any venture, or right after his nightly meal.

And she was going to speak to him tonight, whether he liked it or not.

When he left three days ago, she realized that all the misery, loneliness and self-blame that she thought she gotten over had all suddenly come back. Vegeta, brash and uncouth as he was, was the one keeping her sadness at bay, in ways he didn't even seem to realize.

She didn't know what it was about him, but she wanted to reach out to him, touch the loneliness she can feel in his heart and heal it with her own. She wanted to hold him in her arms and give him the same comfort and reassurance that he had given her when he told her all those weeks ago that her break up was not her fault.

But mostly, she wanted him here, to help her figure out why, _why,_ she felt this way about him now, and just what this feeling was.

She had been in love before, and she knew what love was. But being around Vegeta was something different, and she couldn't tell if it was just an intense longing or an even stronger emotion that she absolutely wished to not put a name to just yet.

He was confusing her, and she was sure she was confusing him.

But mostly, she was appalled at what she discovered as she picked up the pieces of herself after he ran off right after kissing her.

She knew, that if he had tried to have sex with her then, she would have let him have his way with her.

It made no sense, how she was so, _so ready_ for him now, in a way she had never been ready in a previous relationship that lasted 15 years.

She was terrified, but in her mind, she knew that this awakened need would not go away until she found a way to make him touch her. She knew that her virgin sensibilities had flown out the window the moment he clutched her close to his body, and she knew that, her inexperience notwithstanding, she truly, undeniably, wanted him.

She started walking towards his room, the one he had selected when he first came to earth to live with her and her family. And as she came closer and closer to the door, she also came to the realization that she didn't really have any plans regarding what to do or what to say to him. All she knew was that she needed to see him.

She stood outside his door, nerves frazzled as she quickly tried to come up with a way to start a conversation, to have an idea even, of what she was actually _doing_ there.

She ran out of time when he suddenly opened the door, looking at her through narrowed eyes, his body language taut and seemingly ready for flight.

And just like that, she knew what she had to do.

Vegeta stared at Bulma with trepidation, stepping aside to make way for her, in a silent ascent to let her into his sanctuary. She walked in with a tiny smile, letting herself sit at the corner of his bed, gazing at him through her bright blue eyes.

He felt exposed, standing before her in only his wet hair and loose sweatpants, berating himself for feeling exposed when he knew for a fact that she had seen him wearing much less.

The woman was wearing a thin blue sleeping gown, a thin robe covering her further to protect her from the chilly night air. She appeared unsure of herself, looking everywhere but at him. She then seemed to steel herself, and she looked straight at him, finding her words before he could even think of what to say.

"I fixed the gravity chamber," she began, her smile widening slightly. "I made some adjustments to the control panel, too. I placed a specially crafted fiberglass material over the controls. It is made from a polymer that I derived from the components I used to make your armor, as that seemed to withstand your ki blasts well enough. I'm not sure it can withstand a direct hit from you, but it can easily stand up to stray blasts. I hope it works well enough."

"Hnn," he nodded, uneasy at her cheerful tone and news. He was anxiously waiting for her to begin screaming at him, either for kissing her, or for disappearing without a word.

She surprised him, yet again, when her lips curved into a full blown smile, and she whispered conspiratorially, loud enough for him to hear, "Also, I enjoyed that _thing_ we did in my lab, and I _really_ wouldn't mind if we tried that again."

His jaw dropped in shock, reminded that he had initially thought her a "vulgar woman".

"What?"

"Oh come on, Vegeta. You heard me," she blushed deeply even as she grinned widely. "I liked it. I wish you hadn't stopped."

"W-woman, are you insane?" Vegeta raged, but Bulma stayed seated, seemingly nonplused in the face of his ire. "I took advantage of you there. Why aren't you angry?"

She just smiled at him, and a blush stole across his own cheeks as he snarled, "Stop smiling! Are you messing with me?"

Her smile dimmed slightly into a more placating stretch of her lips, rather than the earlier almost tauntingly wide, full toothed grin.

"Vegeta, I am not kidding. I really _did_ enjoy it. And I want you to continue where you left off."

He stared at her, dumbfounded, his guilt at what he had done gnawing at him as he bit out, "Woman you are mad. You ask me to continue? Do you know how much farther I would have _continued_ if I hadn't caught myself?"

Bulma stood then, walking towards him with her eyes locked onto his, hips swaying tantalizingly, reminding him of how those thighs felt as he clutched them against his waist on that day in her lab. Oh, how he remembered, and now his body remembered it as well. He could feel heat rising within his chest, his mind growing fuzzy as he smelled her delicious scent more strongly as she came closer, and closer…

"Yes, I know. And I want you to," she whispered as she closed the distance between them, and he could hear her heart beating a frantic rhythm against her chest. She was nervous, he could tell, but she was also determined. "You told me not to compromise my mind and my body. I am not compromising it now. I want you, Vegeta. And I think, you really want me, too."

He almost reared back, but her small hand, pressed softly against his abdomen, almost felt like a balm on his soul and _could not_ move away. "Bulma," he started, realizing his mistake when her mouth opened for a soft, pleased gasp, obvious delight filling her eyes at the sound of her name on his lips.

"I will not insult your intelligence by lying to you and denying that I do. I would very much like to have you in my bed, woman. But tell me," he paused, searching her eyes, "You have not allowed any human male to taint you for as long as you have lived. Why would you decide to give in to a being like me?" he asked, desperately needing her to understand that her body, her beautiful, precious body, should not be squandered on a man like him.

He felt unworthy as he thought back to all the atrocities he committed, all the cheap fucks he had indulged in, and as he wallowed in self-disgust, a voice in the back of his head kept asking him _why_ he even cared enough about this human woman's welfare to attempt to turn her down on such a delectable offer.

She simply smiled beguilingly at him, her hand on his abs moving up to take purchase on his chest, as the dainty fingers of her other limb moved softly across his cheek.

"I don't know _why,_ my prince," she all but cooed as her face started moving closer to his own, her lips barely a hair's breadth away. "All I know is I want this with you, and I don't care if you never wish to come near me again, but I need you… I need to know what it's like… I am ready. And I want to do this with you. _"_

Something about the way she said that she needed him, wanted him, made something snap inside Vegeta, and he growled, wrapping one arm around her waist as his other hand quickly fisted into her thick hair, pulling her impossibly close. His eyes narrowed, his desire manifesting in his gaze.

"I am no good for you woman. But I will _fuck_ you," he rasped out, a gasp escaping her as he smelled her arousal like a thick perfume, clinging to each particle of air in the room. "And I need you to really feel, _Bulma,_ because it will only be just this once _."_

She sighed, sagging against him as her knees buckled, before she responded, "Yes, just this once."

Bulma nearly fainted as the full intensity of Vegeta's masculinity hit her, a seemingly tactile wave of pleasure that reached her even before his lips descended hungrily onto hers. He was so warm, inhumanly so, but in spite of his heat, goosebumps sprang up all over her body as his hands began to roam, his powerful legs quickly backing her up until her knees hit the edge of his bed.

It felt as if he was everywhere at once, his body wrapping her in its force as he hastily pulled her robe off of her so he could touch more of her flesh. Her thin, sleeveless night gown might as well have been gone for all the cloth did to keep her from feeling his hands as they skimmed across her stomach, winding around her back as he kissed her with even more fervor than the last time.

His lips crushed against hers, taking no prisoners as she gasped, and his tongue swept into the recesses of her mouth like he was starved and desperate for her taste. Bulma arched up, pushing her breasts against his hard chest and he growled against her as he pushed down and made them both fall onto his bed.

She could only hold on to his arms as he assaulted her senses, and she felt a peculiar wetness between her legs, something that she had not experienced with Yamcha. She still could not understand why she hadn't felt this way for a man she had spent so many years with, and yet she felt so much desire for Vegeta, a man whose sanity and capacity to care for her and Earth were probably tenuous at best.

Vegeta's questing hands felt like they were everywhere at once, and she suddenly found that he had already reached down and was caressing the inside of her thighs.

She was utterly lost in sensation, and she cried out when his large, calloused hand started edging closer to her center. When he finally cupped her there, she swore that she literally saw stars.

He started to crawl up her body, and for the first time, Bulma noticed that he was already naked. She had to wonder when he took his pants off, before her eyes traveled down to fully take in the glorious sight of a fully naked Vegeta.

He was, in a word, magnificent.

His body was absolute perfection, well-muscled and without an ounce of extra fat. Each muscle was well defined, covered in delicious caramel skin.

His right hand started running up and down her left arm in a soothing caress, seemingly trying to wordlessly reassure her that he was going to take care of her. His tender manner in bed, so unlike his usual gruff self, made tears spring to Bulma's eyes, and she kissed him passionately as she felt him finally enter her.

A short, sharp pain shot through her, and then…

That was it. She wasn't a virgin anymore.

She found that she had no regrets, and as Vegeta gasped above her, she looked up into his face and was astounded at how beautiful he was right in that moment.

She was having sex with Vegeta. And it was glorious.

Right as Bulma felt the climax creeping onto her again, Vegeta opened his eyes, his gaze unwavering, refusing to let her look away as he continued to pleasure her. His hands had started getting restless, and he stroked, caressed, and squeezed each part of her he could reached as his steady rhythm started to falter, as her cries kept growing louder, and both knew that the other was oh, so close.

And suddenly, Bulma's peak came, crashing over like a tidal wave, and in her moment of ecstasy, she felt Vegeta lose himself within her as well, her name spilling from his lips in a mix of a groan and a sigh, the sound of which, Bulma will remember for the rest of her life.

He collapsed then, half on and half off of her, his breathing hard and labored, and Bulma tangled her hands again into his hair.

She sighed, content, amazed at what sex was like, or at least, at what sex with Vegeta was like.

Tomorrow, her doubts would surface again. She would again analyze and over analyze everything that took place tonight until her head ached, but for tonight…

Tonight, she would rest and be careless. Just this once.

END


End file.
